


the shape of despair

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Armitage Hux Has Issues, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Disturbing Themes, Hurt/Comfort, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Loss of Control, M/M, Medical Procedures, Medical Trauma, Mental Instability, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Bondage, Parasites, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sickfic, Sith Holocron, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:00:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21607195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: General Hux has never really believed in the power of the Force. Sure, he's witnessed Kylo Ren perform his little parlor tricks, but beyond that, he puts little credence in its validity and importance to anyone who isn't a maniacal mystic.But an unexpected encounter with a mysterious Force relic puts Hux squarely in the center of a war between his enigmatic co-commander, and the sinister, corrupting presence now growing deep inside of his body and soul. And there's a high chance that Hux's sanity—or himself, for that matter—will not survive intact.
Relationships: Armitage Hux/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Armitage Hux/Kylo Ren
Comments: 42
Kudos: 207
Collections: Kylux Big Bang 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone and welcome to my entry for the 2019 Kylux Big Bang! Thank you very much to my partner in crime, [wildfang-art](https://wildfang-art.tumblr.com/), who has been an endless source of inspiration over the past couple of months and who has some _incredible_ art I'm so thrilled to have illustrating this fic! 
> 
> This fic starts a little slow and not as extreme as the tags imply at first, but please note that they will come into play later on. If any of those things listed above upset you, I strongly encourage you to give this fanfic a skip. I will be sure to put extra warnings in the notes for the chapters that specifically include those topics as well.
> 
> Fic will be updated with a new chapter every day or so, for a total of eight. I hope you guys enjoy the ride!

A cool, automated voice brought Hux out of his thoughts. 

His eyes pulled towards the viewport near the front of the shuttle, now filled with the expansive image of a blue-green planet, surface swirling with periodic clouds. The voice again announced the name of their destination, though it sounded like static in Hux’s ears. He stood stiffly, his arms folded behind his back, keeping silent. Overall, doing his level best not to accidentally initiate conversation with the man leaning against the wall of the shuttle across from him. 

For once, Hux hardly cared about the exact details of their location. He only wanted the mission to be over as soon as possible. 

While he considered negotiations on behalf of the Order his strong suit, there were far too many interfering factors—or rather, one _glaring_ issue in particular—making him nervous. And that was the unnecessary tag-a-long presumably eyeing him through the visor of his ghastly mask. 

Hux had no reason to like, nor even respect Kylo Ren. Hux bit his tongue on orders from the Supreme Leader, but otherwise, he refused to give his hostile co-commander any undue attention. Even now, on a mission together, when they were arguably pursuing the same goal. 

Hux suspected Ren knew what exactly they were negotiating for. Hux, despite his status, wasn’t privy to such information, which aggravated him. He bristled at the thought, clenching his fists behind his back as he struggled to maintain his usual parade rest. In terms of official ranking, he was at the very least Ren’s equal, and by all right deserved access to the same information he had. But Hux knew better than to challenge Snoke and pry into the dark, mystic dealings that enshrouded himself and his unstable apprentice. So he put up with the lack of information for now, eager to plow through negotiations and return to the safety and surety of his ship. 

His and Ren’s needs dovetailed neatly together at the moment, but they won’t remain that way for long. Hux expected them to diverge and conflict before they even return to Snoke with the spoils. 

The hull of the shuttle rattled as they descended through the atmosphere, but neither man chose to sit. Hux refused to take a seat in Ren’s presence despite the twinging in his back, too suspicious and conscious of his pride. He swayed a little on his feet as the shuttle pulled out of its dive into a cruising altitude. Hux looked away from Ren towards the viewport, hoping the moment of imbalance was hidden by the cover of his greatcoat. 

Ren, fortunately, said nothing, not that that meant much. He almost never spoke to Hux, instead, presumably, filing away any of the general’s failings or missteps away in his mind for later use against him. Hux would rather minimize contact between them whenever possible for this very reason. 

Their quarry lived in a grand manor-house fringed by dusky blue trees, far from the clumped, slum-like towns the shuttle had zoomed over on the way to its destination. Guards dressed in rich armor and cloth headcovers met them as they descended the gangplank, their ceremonial halberds reflecting the waning sunlight. Hux almost expected them to pat him and Ren down for weaponry, but the guards, gauging it might be against their best interest, let them pass unbothered towards the manor’s grand entryway. A pair of youthful servants, both dressed in white, greeted them with soft, crimson smiles before leading the way to their master. 

Ren remained silent, a shadow tailored to Hux’s wake as they strode through the halls. He hadn’t breathed a word since their clipped conversation aboard the shuttle. Hux wanted it to stay that way—Ren would only cause trouble by opening his mouth and removing all doubt as to his foolishness. He hoped that even someone so thick and volatile understood the gravity of the situation. 

After all, this negotiation was— _allegedly_ —for Ren's benefit. That was what Hux had gleaned from their dual briefing with the Supreme Leader, in any case. No doubt Snoke had given Ren more information about what exactly this mysterious item might be used for, though so far Hux had been led to believe it would serve a greater purpose for the Order as a _whole_ , not just its resident tantrum-ing enforcer. 

Once they reach the end of the long hallway the servants stopped and stood to attention at either side of a tall, elegant door. The servant at the right turned to key an access code into the security display behind him, before resuming his servile stance and allowing Hux and Ren to march through the door once its gilded panels slide apart. 

The hallway opened up into a tall, octagonal room filled with a table that looked like it’d be better suited in a far larger chamber, like a proper sitting room or banquet hall. Long tapestries, glittering display cases, and lurid paintings didn’t quite alleviate the cluttered atmosphere. Nerves tickled up Hux’s spine as he strode inside—he disliked small spaces. They made it harder to find proper cover should negotiations turn sour.

Not that Hux was expecting that. But it was always better to be prepared, concoct an escape plan for every potential situation. There was a reason he’d survived this long despite his dearth of combat ability—he was good at thinking on his feet. 

Across the large table sat the sole occupant of the room, a rather large man clad in long, floor-length robes of red and gold brocade. Designs of strange creatures and bizarre patterns spiraled along the sleeves and choked the collar cinched tightly about his thick neck. Rings inlaid with a rainbow of stones squeezed his chubby fingers as they drummed against his stomach. When he smiled, his face looked much akin to a bearded frog’s.

“Master Ren, General Hux,” the merchant greeted them both in turn, sitting up slightly in his seat. Hux prickled a little as he addressed Ren first despite the fact that he stood far behind Hux, almost at the door. “I’ve been eagerly anticipating your arrival. Come, come, sit. Make yourself comfortable.”

He gestured to the lavish chairs on the other side of the table, long sleeve sweeping through the air. Hux took a seat in one of them but Ren remained standing stiffly, as if he hadn’t even heard the merchant’s command. More likely, he just didn’t care to submit to any kind of order apart from his Master’s, no matter how casual or friendly it was.

The merchant didn’t notice, or perhaps wisely decided not to challenge the notorious Kylo Ren’s refusal to sit. He instead turned his attention to Hux once he’d settled in his chair, most likely understanding the general would be far more approachable and talkative than his surly companion. 

“I trust you had a good flight? The weather is just delightful today. You’re very lucky—we’ve been enduring our fair share of windstorms the past couple days.”

Hux hummed and kept his hands resting beneath the table, disinterested in the merchant’s small talk. These well-monied, treasure-obsessed types always enjoyed the sound of their own voice and stories.

“I trust you recall the nature of our business today?” Hux said, suppressing a twitch as a bead of sweat built at the nape of the neck. The cramped space makes the air inside the room far too warm and stuffy for his comfort. 

“I’ve been waiting for the proper buyer for a long time.” The merchant rubbed his hands together, leaning back into his chair as if he wasn’t entertaining two of the more deadly men in the galaxy. “Not just anyone can appreciate just how... _special_ this item is.”

The merchant pressed a button recessed into the table, speaking towards the small microphone inset beside it. 

“Go on ahead and bring it in.”

The merchant sat back in his chair, folding his hands in his lap and smiling as the door behind him slid open. A guard, dressed similarly to those who had met them at the entrance yet far taller and broader, clumped in. He carried a blaster in one hand, the other grasped around the handle of a heavy, silver case. 

Hux scowled. This felt far more akin to a disreputable, black-market deal than a professional exchange of goods. He watched as the thuggish guard hauled the case over and hefted it atop the table with a loud _slam_. 

“Careful,” Hux snipped, agitated by the sound and lack of care, “if you damage them, you’ll not see a single one of the Order’s credits.”

“Don’t be so tense, general. You’ll get your prizes all in one piece.” The merchant smirked, caressing the top of the case as he rose to his feet. “Now, about _your_ end of the trade.”

“Yes. Of course.” Hux remained seated, hands in his lap. Let the man think he had all the power in the situation. Hux only wanted to retrieve what they had come for and leave without a fuss. 

Behind him, Ren stayed quiet. If not for the fact that, at this point, Hux could sense his mere presence, he might’ve believed that he’d grown bored and departed. 

“I won’t go any lower than four hundred thousand credits. Consider that your starting point. Items of such rarity, in reality, merit a far steeper asking price.” The merchant leaned forward, chin in his palm. “I trust your benefactor supplied you with the proper funds. The Supreme Leader’s deep pockets have accrued a certain degree of...notoriety. If we understand each other, general.”

Hux nodded. He knew how much Snoke was willing to offer for the artifact’s retrieval. The merchant was lucky he’d demanded a price well below the maximum threshold Hux had been given. If he thought he could get away with extortion then—well.

That’s why Ren was here. Just in case their host decided he didn’t want to part with one of his prized antiquities after all. They would not return to the Supreme Leader empty-handed. 

“How does four-hundred-thousand credits sound?” Hux felt a little silly offering so much money in exchange for something he doesn’t even know the true nature of. But ultimately the funds weren’t coming from his pocket, unless one considered Hux indistinguishable from the Order, which he often did. 

To his annoyance, the merchant only pursed his lips together in faux consideration. Clearly unsatisfied by Hux’s proposal.

“General, the item in question is _at least_ several hundred years old. I myself spent a good decade and countless credits tracking it down. Unlike anything else in the galaxy, it is. No, no, I can’t see myself parting with such a valuable part of my collection for any less than _six_ -hundred thousand credits.”

Hux sighed internally. He didn’t enjoy haggling. He didn’t want to be challenged, or have this engagement eat up any more than the necessary amount of time. But he bit his tongue, mind grasping for something else to help sweeten the deal.

“Five-hundred-thousand credits, and you’ll find all your pre-existing trade routes under the exclusive protection of the First Order,” Hux offered, interested in curtailing the merchant’s price before it grew any loftier. He wouldn’t care to spare much of his fleet to secure the man’s business, but he could part with a couple cursory patrol crafts and some of his less skilled trooper squadrons to ease the merchant’s mind.

Thankfully, that seemed to do the trick, because the merchant’s smile broadened. 

“That’s more like it, general. Though I didn’t quite anticipate you’d be so tight-fisted with your employer’s money,” he simpered, sliding his hand over the top of the case. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

The merchant keyed in a code on the digital access pad, adorned fingers flitting around a series of unusual symbols. Hux watched the case intently, ever-anticipating some sort of trap or last-second betrayal. But the case didn’t burst into flames or leach poison gas into the air when the internal mechanisms whirred and unlocked, allowing the dealer to flip the lid open. Hux still flinched beneath the cover of his greatcoat, but nothing at all unusual or dangerous happened once he finally got a proper look at what sat inside of the case.

Amidst a lining of aged, black velvet, nestled what looked like a small glass pyramid, its planes welded together at the edges by a framework of verdigrised bronze. Geometric patterns and worn lettering inscribed it all over, etchings choked with the dust of many, many years. The glass walls glowed, lit by a throbbing, internal light of deep, molten red. 

Hux leaned forward in his chair, unlacing his hands and bracing them against the table. Behind him, he heard Ren draw a tight breath in through his mask. Hux eyes fixed upon the artifact, brows drawn in scrutiny as he raised his hand as if thinking to touch it. 

It was... _it was_...

Hux held back a snort. He had no idea what it was, but it certainly didn’t look all that impressive. _Five hundred thousand credits for a trinket?_ Hux wasn’t about to challenge the Supreme Leader’s spending habits, but surely those funds could be better spent outfitting their troops or updating the fleet. Or even just allotting all officers another daily ration bar at the beginning of the cycle—anything other than what looked like a useless, mystical paperweight. 

He almost scoffed, despite his orders from the Supreme Leader to retrieve the item. Hux even opened his mouth, unable to contain all of his derision, when suddenly a voice sounded over his shoulder. 

“Where did you find this?” Hux’s heart twitched as Ren’s coarse tone, but their host only laughed in response. 

“Would you believe—at a junk market on Kuat?” 

“I wouldn’t.” 

The merchant’s eyes narrowed, smile unwavering. 

“Yes. Well. How I acquired it is of little relevance, Master Ren.” Hux’s eyes flitted to the side, watching Ren in his periphery. He really hoped he wouldn’t try anything stupid, not when Hux had finally negotiated a proper trade. 

But Ren acquiesced, or decided it wasn’t worth it to challenge the merchant’s lie, or was too captivated by the object in the case, because he replied with only a low grunt. Aware he wouldn’t get further response out of Ren, the merchant turned his attention back to Hux. 

“General, I’ll allow you time to properly inspect the goods,” he said with his flat smile and flourish of a long sleeve as he rose, dislodging himself free from his chair, “though I doubt you’ll be dissatisfied.” 

The door closed quietly behind him. His guards left on his heels, though Hux knew they were still being watched. Men flush with so many riches were always paranoid, and with good reason—no one attained this grand a collection of artifacts without making a fair share of enemies out for blood. 

Not that Hux had any plans to cut and run with the object, especially considering he still didn’t understand what it was. One way to find out, though he was loathed to.

“Ren,” Hux murmured out of the corner of his mouth, “what is this?” He wouldn’t normally bother asking him anything, but something about the object piques his curiosity. 

“It resonates with the Force,” Ren mumbled, voice low as if lulled into a trance, “I can hear it whispering.”

Hux resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Yes, yes, but what _is_ it. What purpose does it serve to you, or anyone else?” Hux hoped that whatever it was, it would be able to assist the Order somewhat, just to make this mission more than completely pointless in his eyes. 

“...It’s a lesson,” Ren answered after a long, contemplative beat. Hux’s brow twitched, irked. 

“A lesson?” he snapped, nostrils flared as if he’d smelled something unpleasant as he flicked his eyes back towards the case and its softly pulsing contents. “How is a damned antique going to teach us anything?”

“Not _you_ ,” Ren growled, but Hux ignored him. He stood up out of his chair and kicked it back in a spate of frustration, curling one fist against the table. 

“Five-hundred-thousand credits. Five-hundred _thousand_ -credits, down the tubes,” Hux muttered under his breath, well aware anything disparaging he might say in Ren’s presence would easily trickle back to Snoke’s ears. “All for a decrepit trinket. I bet the thing breaks the moment I touch it—"

Hux didn’t normally make a habit out of touching objects of unknown origin, but in his irritation and eagerness to prove his point he brushed past his usual abundance of caution. He heard Ren intake a sharp breath through his mask as he reached out towards the case, but before he could stop him the tips of Hux’s fingers grazed the object’s dusty glass. 

At first, nothing happened. The object felt slightly warm to the touch but didn’t burn through his gloves, nor electrocute him, nor manifest jaws and snap off his fingers, nor any number of unpleasant consequences. Hux scoffed, then smirked, about to turn to Ren to chide him for his misplaced concern—

But suddenly, Ren wasn’t there any longer. Nothing was. Hux gaped, turning to look back towards the case, only to find nothing but frigid void yawning all around him. All he could see standing out against the sudden darkness was the pulsating glow of the trinket, suspended in the air like a fresh heart ripped straight from the body. 

Hux tried to breathe, but the sensation tickling along his skin took that opportunity to dive through his mouth into his throat to spread throughout his body. His muscles trembled and his fingers twitched, wanting to drop the artifact in his hand but it stayed in place, as if it had put roots down into his palm. 

Hux’s sweat froze in painful beads against his skin. All of a sudden, he felt a cold unlike any he’d ever felt before. A cold sinking deep beneath the many layers of his uniform, penetrating the thick gaberwool of his greatcoat like it was nothing. A cold down through his flesh and blood, permeating through his bones, to his very core. So frozen, petrified, that Hux couldn't even shiver. He could only stare at the melting void around him, the bright red dancing in the periphery, stealing away like a ghost whenever he tried to capture it. 

His lungs felt ready to burst, his core infected with the cold, expanding outwards. Tendrils around his heart, constricting, like his own veins had come to life and turned against him. Something inside of Hux’s body pushing outwards, stretching his skin and sanity, inhabiting every inch of his being, _stealing_ the last ounce of breath and life from him and leaving him nothing more than an empty—

“General? Hux, _Hux?”_

Ren’s voice snapped him out of it. Hux blinked rapidly, each swat of his eyelids melting away the void around him until the room swam back into view. The sensation of expansion inside of him vanished, leaving only a vise-like pressure around his wrist. 

Hux glanced down, finding a gloved hand grasped around his wrist. The artifact still throbbed in his palm, whispers retreating back within its walls. Hux resisted the urge to drop it and watch it shatter into a pile of glass upon the floor, steadying his trembling fingers as he set it back into the case. After staring at the artifact for a tense moment he glanced back at Ren, tugging his arm against his grasp.

“What makes you think you can lay a hand on me?” Hux hissed under his breath, trying to mask the tremor in his voice. He yanked again, then again. Only then did Ren finally let him go. Hux rounded on him, cradling the forearm against his chest as if Ren had injured it. 

“...Apologies, general.” Ren said, managing to sound dazed even with his usual vocal distortion. Thanks to the mask, Hux couldn’t tell whether Ren was looking at him or the artifact, but he turned his back on him before bothering to figure it out. 

“You carry that thing back to your Master. After all, it’s _your_ precious bauble,” Hux spat, trying to clear his mind. The brief flashes of imagery still beat like a pulse in the forefront of his mind. He grimaced, knuckling his forehead as if trying to massage away a headache. 

By the time the merchant reentered the room Hux could barely focus even as he initiated the transfer of credits, needing to check the numbers thrice over before he was confident he hadn’t keyed in the incorrect value by mistake. The merchant either didn’t notice or, more likely, didn’t care about Hux’s mental state now that he had his money and guaranteed protection from his enemies by the Order. Hux mumbled through their goodbyes, more than ready to return to his ship and hopefully not see Ren for a couple of cycles. He’d had more than enough mystic rubbish for the time being.

This time, Hux ended up taking a seat on the shuttle, head tipped back and resting against the wall behind him. For some reason he felt dizzy, so much so that he could hardly keep his eyes open without the hold spinning around him. Odd. He didn’t usually get motion sickness from takeoff.

Thankfully, Ren let him be for the duration of the return journey. Hux thought he might _actually_ get sick if Ren tried to chat him up with any more of his usual esoteric drivel. 

Hux even started to nod off as the shuttle approached the _Finalizer_ , unaware of the gaze lingering over him from across the floor. Silent as ever, Ren scanned Hux from inside the cover of his mask, eyes focusing on his slack hand before sweeping back to the heavy silver case delicately stored in the central cargo hold. 

Ren shook his head, the movement almost imperceptible beneath the bell of his helmet. 

It was probably nothing.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which things go downhill quickly! Poor Hux.
> 
> Specific warnings for this chapter: depictions of illness, vomiting, mild blood.

For what it was worth, Snoke seemed mostly satisfied by the results of the mission. 

Despite the fact that he’d had to endure more of Ren than he would’ve liked, Hux too found himself pleased as punch when he departed the Supreme Leader’s chamber, leaving the apprentice to converse with his master. It did still irk him slightly that, despite his efforts spent _obtaining_ the object for Snoke, he still wasn’t told exactly what it was, but he tried to push the annoyance from his mind. 

After all, it was probably just what he suspected it was—a silly, mystic bauble for some strange Force ritual. Useless to anyone but Ren and his nebulous “training.” 

What had he said it was? A lesson? Hux snorted under his breath as he strode through the hallway away from the meeting chamber. The only lesson Ren needed was a lesson in etiquette. 

Hux could only hope that was what the trinket contained. 

He turned sharply around a corner in the hallway only to start as the floor suddenly shifted beneath his feet. Hux let out a tight gasp, stumbling and flinging his arm out in front of him to catch his balance. His heart leaped in his chest—what was this? An attack? How had he not heard any alarms, surely the Resistance couldn’t slip a sneak attack through their shields without detection? 

But just like that, the ship righted itself. Hux blinked, sweat collecting at his temples, arm still held out. He ripped his eyes away from the floor that had been shaking with impact just a moment and glanced about furtively. He waited for further tremors or the telltale shrieks of enemy fire, but none came. 

Hux inhaled brusquely, still hunched over. Trying to catch his breath, as if he’d just run a lap around the training track. 

_What in the stars was that?_

A petty officer making his way down the hallway towards Hux stopped once they spotted him, alarm briefly crossing their face before they jerked into a salute. Hux whipped his hand behind his back and looked up at them, acknowledging their presence with a tilt of his head as soon as he composed himself. 

“As you were,” Hux rasped, making sure they hold their salute until he brushes past them. His head still spun slightly but he forced his uneasiness down, determined not to show any further vulnerability in front of any of his men. _Really._ He had no time for imagined assaults. Plenty of real ones to go around. 

Hux pinched the bridge of his nose once he was sure there was no one else around to witness his frustration. Perhaps he was developing a migraine, a consequence of too much time spent with the Ren, the physical embodiment of an aneurysm. Some proper rest should clear that right up. Then, Hux could return to his duties refreshed and level-headed, without unnecessary distractions.

Hux fought down the pain and nausea, straightening his posture as he made his way back to his quarters. Hopefully that bauble would keep Ren occupied for quite some time. 

* * *

Kylo didn’t understand what he was doing incorrectly. 

After months of chasing leads, he finally had the object of his desires within his possession. His Master had commanded him to meditate alone with it, focus all his power upon it until it opened up and granted its vast knowledge to him. Which Kylo had done posthaste, storming through the ship to his private quarters with the artifact cradled reverently beneath his robes. 

But all his efforts had so far proved futile. He opened his eyes to stare at the holocron, probing into it with the Force once more, but still sensed no reaction from within its walls. Kylo had been sitting in the same position for hours, trying every possible recourse to coax it to life. And yet—no response. His mind throbbed, spent from the effort and frustrated at the futility of all that time lost. 

Nevertheless, he refused to give in. Kylo closed his eyes again, summoning all his strength to the forefront of his mind. He lifted the holocron up in his cupped palms, beseeching the entity inside as he called out to it one final time—but it remained inert and still. It was as if the presence incubating within the holocron had died and dissipated, taking all its secrets with it. 

Kylo slitted breath through his teeth, composure thinning. He cracked opened his eyes as fingers dug into the planes of the holocron, threatening to crack them. _Why?_ Was he still unworthy of the Dark’s wisdom? How could that be? Master had said—

His Master couldn’t have lied _,_ could he?

Kylo shook his head. No. Impossible. 

Perhaps they had been mislead. Yes. That had to be it. Kylo hadn’t trusted that merchant from the moment he’d met them, yet he’d remained silent, allowed Hux to handle the situation, relish in his petty mastery of negotiation. He’d let it slide that the haughty general had no idea what he was dealing with, underestimating the importance of the trade. Kylo had felt confident, when he’d first seen the holocron, that it was the genuine article, but now—now, he wasn’t entirely sure. 

_Five-hundred thousand credits_ , Hux’s snide voice echoed in Kylo’s head, _all for a decrepit trinket_. 

Rage flared up inside of him, and before Kylo could stop himself he’d flung the holocron across the room. It sailed over the twisted helmet resting on the center pedestal and smashed into the far wall with a resounding _crack_. Kylo rose to his feet, suddenly struck with regret at what he had done. He rushed over to where the holocron lay on the floor, only to find it split open like an egg, its glass walls splintered, runic patterns now smashed and indecipherable. 

Kylo sunk to his knees, fingers scattering over the shards of glass. He peered inside the ruined holocron, lips tightening into a line. 

Nothing but empty, useless dust lay inside. Kylo crushed the remains with a single thought and tossed them away. 

* * *

The shuttle rattled again, sending twinges of pain through Hux’s skull. He scowled, lifting his head a little off the seat, irritated that he couldn’t find a comfortable place to rest. 

Starkiller Base loomed in the viewport as the pilot began the descent through the planet’s atmosphere. Much as Hux relished in looking at his masterpiece as it came together, he wished he was back aboard the _Finalizer._ Preferably resting in his quarters will the lights turned down to zero, nursing his pounding headache. 

The transport shook again as it dove through the thick, wintry clouds masking the planet. Hux took a deep, steadying breath through his nose and eased it out through his mouth, trying to keep focused. He just needed to get through his inspection, and then he could return and get some proper rest. It’d been about a week since he’d first encountered trouble sleeping, and Hux was about ready to relent and call in some sedatives from the medbay. Or, if he had to stay up without relief, a _pfaasking_ stim so he could actually focus and retain enough energy to get through his shifts. 

The thrusters kicked in, gradually slowing their descent. Hux gritted his teeth and forced himself to his feet as they came in for a landing, trying to discreetly lean against the wall while maintaining his usual composed posture. It seemed to work, because none of the assembled troopers and officers noticed his swaying or pinched expression

At least Hux could take solace in the fact that Starkiller’s construction was proceeding on schedule—perhaps even a little ahead. He was here merely to assess and approve of the progress himself, and provide insight into any issues he found. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take too long. 

He could bear it, just so long as his damned headache didn’t get any worse. 

* * *

Hux tried to tuck his neck into the collar of his uniform and think about warm tea and burying his face in Millicent’s fur within the safety and shelter of his quarters.

The weather on Starkiller Base was blisteringly cold. Worse than usual, in fact. Hux wondered if the extensive construction deep into the planet’s core could be the cause of such a sudden, vicious blizzard. Or perhaps it was just another instance of the bad luck he’d been experiencing lately. Ever since the expedition to retrieve Ren’s bauble, Hux had been feeling particularly lethargic. It wasn’t just his head that ached, but also his chest and especially his abdomen. He’d noticed a bit of bloating about a week ago, a paunch of pale flesh pushing out over the waistband of his briefs, and assumed it was little more than a disagreeable mess hall meal. But it persisted into the present, along with spells of nausea, fatigue, and chills. 

Whatever the reason, Hux was freezing, even with all the layers of his uniform on plus one of his many greatcoats, this one reinforced with extra thick lining. He was so well-bundled that it actually hampered his movement somewhat, and yet _still_ the cold penetrated deep down inside of him. A shiver ran through his body at a particularly chilly blast of wind—he could wait until the outdoor portion of the inspection was completed, and he could retreat back inside the outpost to warm back up. 

Hux wasn’t about to get what he wanted that easily, though, and really he should have been expecting it. Before long, the tenuous calm of the inspection was disturbed as another, woefully recognizable shuttle descended through the atmosphere, whipping the already fervid snow up as it landed. 

Hux groaned, massaging the bridge of his nose as the gangplank extended from the belly of the shuttle. Of course he could scarcely catch a break. The one bit of luck he’d had in the past couple weeks was that he’d managed to avoid Ren for the most part. So of course, when he was already at his nadir physically and mentally, the damn bastard had to show up out of the blue. 

Ren was clad in thicker robes than usual, no doubt to stave off the blizzard whipping this sector of the base into a frenzy. His thick boots clumped down the gangplank then through the snow towards Hux, easily outpacing the pair of troopers assigned to flank him. Hux groaned, feeling the throbbing in his temples worsen just at the sight. Ren’s presence was not going to help his headache. The man was a headache all on his own, one that Hux didn’t want to deal with in his current state.

But, like always, he didn’t have a choice. 

“What business do you have here, Ren?” Hux called when he got close enough, his aches and nagging nausea making it hard for him to affect his usual mien, especially above the whine of the icy wind. Ren seemed to notice something off in his tone, because he paused and tilted his mask slightly to the side, before making the rest of the trek up to the general and his entourage. 

“I wish to bear witness to your inspection, general.”

“And for what purpose? I am already here to assess the progress personally. I assure you I am more than able to do without your assistance.” _Interference_ , Hux corrected mentally, hoping that if Ren could read his tone he could also read his mind, and understand that he wasn’t wanted. 

But Ren didn’t back down. “It’s on Master Snoke’s suggestion,” he said with a shrug of his large shoulders, dismissive and bullheaded as ever. 

Hux ground his teeth at that. Did the Supreme Leader not trust him? Hux was not afraid to stab a couple of backs to get his way to the top, but he wasn’t about to risk cutting off the First Order’s guiding hand and deep pockets to make a premature bid for power. He couldn’t shake the impression that Snoke was sending Ren as a _spy_ , to keep Hux in line and remind him of the Force-Users that liked to think they held sway over his destiny. 

Or perhaps he just wanted Ren educated on the nature of their superweapon. Hux accepted the simplest answer for the time being, the path of least resistance appealing to his exhaustion, but kept his suspicions of Ren, as usual, flirting in the back of his mind. 

“Very well,” Hux relented with a sweep of his sleeve. “We were just about to tour the interior of the auxiliary oscillator. You may come along, I suppose.”

Hux tried to stay at the front of the group as they entered the little outpost, just behind the supervising contractor of this specific part of the base, and only pay attention to what she was saying and nothing else. He didn’t want to talk to Ren if he didn’t have to. Hopefully, he would just stay quiet for the duration of the inspection and then leave without making any fuss. 

Hux mostly got his wish. For once, Ren didn’t seem to be looking for a fight. He brought up the rear of the tour instead of bullying his way to the front, always looking right at Hux whenever he turned to check on him but saying very little. A part of Hux wondered why. It wasn’t like Ren to actually behave himself when it came to official matters that didn’t involve bloodshed or torture. Hux couldn’t imagine that he was actually interested in anything the contractor saying, but he’d take an inexplicably quiet Ren over his usual misbehavior any day. 

His headache wasn’t so yielding, however. By the time they’d exited back outside he could feel the throbbing all the way down to his jaw. His stomach, too, felt properly nauseous, clenching inwards and forcing a foul bile up into the back of his throat. Hux hoped the perimeter check wouldn’t take too long, especially as it seemed both his illness and the blizzard were worsening. 

He rubbed the bridge of his nose with a terse sigh. _Stars_ , he could really use that stim.

“—General?” Ren’s voice, mid-conversation, suddenly cut through his mind. Hux blinked, realizing he’d been drifting. He turned to find Ren suddenly looming at his side, far too close for comfort as per usual, the rest of the tour having stopped with the knight’s disruption.

“What was that?” Hux replied, voice sounding sluggish to his own clouded ears. 

“I said, is it true that your men mined kyber deep from this planet’s core?”

Hux opened his mouth to respond, only for his vision to suddenly shift. Surprised, Hux stumbled, arm thrust out in front of him. His heart rate jumped, throbbing in his ears. Hux tried to swallow, only to find the muscles in the back of his throat locked up and painful. He let out a hoarse cough instead, nausea washing over his mind as his entire body clenched like a large invisible hand had grabbed it, digging its nails into every organ within his abdomen. 

“General? Is something the matter?”

Hux couldn’t respond. His legs gave out, sending him tumbling onto all fours. To his horror, the pressure that had been building in his stomach ever since they landed on Starkiller suddenly surged, rolling up through his throat and filling his mouth. He choked, unable to prevent it from spilling through his lips as he vomited into the snow. He screwed his eyes shut, shame ripping through him but now that it had started he couldn’t do a thing to stop it, his dignity swept away in a tide of sick. He clapped one hand to his mouth in a desperate bid to hold everything back as he balled the other into a fist, slamming it into a mound of soft powder with a wet sob. His stomach clenched and burned, forcing up even more vile fluid. His mouth and throat were burning by the third time he vomited, and he felt disoriented even though his eyes were closed. 

Agonizing moments passed. Hux dry heaved a couple more times but nothing else came up. He still didn’t feel all better but his body refused to purge the rest of the sickness. Dread filled him as he fought to open his eyes, afraid of what he might find. When he finally did drum up the courage to look, he felt like he might be sick again. 

Blood streaked the snow beneath him, painting the soft white in spatters of red and globs of ugly, glistening umber. 

For a moment, Hux wanted to give in, cry like a child. But, steeling himself, he managed to swallow it down along with the rest of the gory vomit sticking to his throat. 

His command cap had fallen off at some point during the ordeal, though thankfully it looked as if it hadn’t been soiled in the process. His gloves hadn’t been fortunate enough to escape unscathed, though. As Hux lifted his palm to his eyes he found blood and bile slithering through the cracks in the leather, dripping down onto the ghostly blue veins standing out against his wrist. Hux grimaced, sick crusted in the corners of his mouth. He’d failed, utterly, in his futile attempts to preserve any shred of his dignity. 

Hux remained in place for a moment, staring at the blood, unsure of what to do. What was he supposed to do after all that, in any case? All his troopers and officers, not to mention _Ren_ had just witnessed him throwing up like an infirm, unfit child. Hux’s eyes burned and he clenched his fist, smearing the soiled leather together. He wanted to vanish, to reappear aboard the _Finalizer_ in his own bed, where he could rinse himself off in the refresher and try to forget all this. He wanted to run, to hide in the woods and never be seen again. But he couldn’t even do that. Hux felt too heavy with shame to life his head, much less stand. 

The snow beside him crunched. Hux shivered as a heavy black boot sunk into the pure white in the corner of his eye. He heard the raspy intake of air that could only belong to Ren. Hux squeezed his eyes tight, waiting for the insult Ren had no doubt prepared after witnessing the general’s undoing. 

Instead, he felt something drape about his shoulders and settle over the length of his body. After a moment, Hux lifted his hand, curiously running it over the garment covering him. He felt the ratty basket-weaving, smelled the distinctive odor of sweat and skin and something else, something akin to burnt ozone. Hux sat back on his knees and dug his fingers in the cowl, pulling it about his body, hiding himself. 

“The general is coming with me. The inspection is postponed for now. You will all return to your posts and not breathe a word of what you’ve seen.” Ren ordered, taking a step away from Hux as the tour dispersed. He didn’t both offering the general a hand as he staggered to his feet, not that Hux would’ve accepted it anyway. 

“You think you can command my men?” Hux coughed, using the corner of Ren’s cowl to wipe the remaining sick and blood off his lips, perhaps hoping it might offend him. But Ren didn’t react. 

“You’re no use to anyone ill, general. You will report to the medics stationed in this outpost immediately.”

“It’s only a passing ailment. I’ll be fine.”

Ren remained still and silent for a moment. Hux was sure he was scrutinizing him beneath the helmet. He pulled the cowl more tightly about his body, sniffing when a flake of snow landed on his nose. 

“Far be it from me to insist on your physical welfare, general,” Ren finally breathed out, “but expelling blood from the stomach indicates serious internal injury. If you don’t want to risk further indignity and death, you’ll report to the medbay immediately.”

Hux didn’t want to question where an aloof mystic like Ren learned about the inner workings of the physical body, as he was too busy hating the fact that Ren was most likely right. Even though he’d stopped vomiting, the churning feeling in his stomach hadn’t abated. It felt wrong, like rusty screws burrowing deep in the tissue, down to the viscera. He couldn’t shake the feeling of dread looming over him, couldn’t deny his worsening condition. 

“Fine,” Hux rasped, turning around with all the intent of walking back to the base himself. But as he took a step one leg gave out, then the other. Before Hux quite knew what was happening he had pitched forward into thin air, the blanketing white of the snow swallowed by static, ceaseless black as his mind collapsed and he passed out. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hux finally gets an inkling of what's going on with him, but finds far more questions than answers. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: body horror, gruesome imagery, medical/hospital themes.

_White._

_White was all Hux could see. Even when he tried lifting his hands up to his face, he saw pale, small fingers, like nubby bones, distinguished from their surroundings by only the faintest outlines of flesh._

_His body was shrouded in white when he looked down, as if a higher being, thinking it wise or merciful, had erased away his very existence._

_“Father?” His voice came out small, high pitched. “Where are you? I’m better now. Please, may I leave?”_

_But hollow, invective silence was the only thing that answered him. He waited, trembled, felt sobs rising up inside of him. Finally, he took his transparent hands and grabbed at the white covering his body, throwing it off thin legs and a shrunken, underfed belly._

_As Hux raised his eyes again, he found something changed in the world around him. A square cut into one of the flat white walls. A window. An opening. As Hux got up from the sterile bed and walked across to it, he almost felt like he wouldn’t reach. But the window grew larger the closer he walked to it, until it ate away all the remaining white, leaving Hux completely exposed as he left the room and crept out into the open air, like an amorphous, primordial being, given legs, crawling up onto the unknown land._

_The grey shores of Arkanis stretched out before him, shadowed underneath a low, purplish sky, heathered with bruises that portend rain. The sand was cold beneath his feet, like everything was cold. Even the pale sun that shone through the clouds gave off no warmth he could feel._

_Something called him down to the waterline, where the slate sea left capillaries of foam against the sand. Fear pulled at his stomach, encouraged him to go back to the false safety of the paper-thin walls, but he walked forward, compelled._

_As Hux drew closer he stretched, elongated, grew from child into adult into general, wind pulling at the familiar hem of his greatcoat, the stitching holding together his usual armor, yet the cold inside of him persisted, as did the fear, a gnawing spreading its veins, its claws, its teeth throughout his body. He looked out over the waves to find them slow and placid, affecting guile, concealing something deep and dark far beneath._

_Something lying in wait._

_“Father?” Hux called foolishly. He knew this place, this part of the shoreline, where the sea ate inwards towards the sand. His father had seen something terrible here, crawling out of the ocean to claim innocent prey, dragging it down to consume. A weak nerf, baying for mercy, watched by an uncaring observer as it was drowned and eaten half-alive._

_Despite that, Hux almost toed the water, felt its cold breath through the thick leather of his boots, colder than the chill already inside of him, cold like an emptiness beyond death. But just as he moved, the vision suddenly shrank away and faded, leaving him with nothing but the dark to behold._

* * *

Hours after arriving and regaining consciousness, Hux lay on the stark sheets of the medbay bed and tried to pretend he was anywhere else. He refused to look at Kylo, who stood nearby like a robotic shadow, and instead watched the monitors ringing his bed. One measured his heartbeat in a steady red wavelength, while the other periodically checked the balance of electrolytes in his blood. He’d been given a saline drip to restore the fluids lost from his previous vomiting spells, though Hux doubted they were needed. He didn’t feel that bad any longer, the spikes of pain and nausea returned more or less to the baseline level he’d been feeling for weeks. He hoped that when the attending medic finally arrived, he could be discharged, finish up his mission, and finally return home to his damn ship. 

Beside him, Kylo shuffled in place. Hux tried not to watch him out of the corner of his eye but after a while got a bit curious. Or perhaps just irritated. He didn’t know why Ren hadn’t left right when he’d handed Hux off to the nurse droids. 

“Ren. You realize that you don’t have to stay, don’t you?” Hux finally chanced to ask, turning his head only slightly, not quite looking at the man in question. “Surely you have business elsewhere.”

For a moment, Ren remained quiet. Hux snorted air through his nose and closed his eyes. Why did he ever expect an answer from this persistently tacit mystic of a man. 

“Master Snoke will wonder where you are,” Ren finally spoke, just as Hux felt he was about to nod off. He snapped his eyes back open, turning all the way to fix Ren with a glare. 

“Tell him I’m being treated like an ill child in the medbay because _someone_ insisted I was too compromised to continue my inspection,” Hux spat out a little harsher than he meant to, some discolored saliva dribbling down his lips as a result. He licked it back up quickly, knowing Ren saw. It didn’t exactly help his case, his assertion that he was feeling better and should be cleared for discharge. 

Predictably, Ren remained unmoved. “Let them look at you, general. The base won’t fall apart in your absence.” He probably didn’t mean it, but Hux detected a slight to his command style in Ren’s tone. It wasn’t exactly unfounded to assume Ren was undermining him in every moment. 

“Fine. But I’m resuming my work the moment they clear me fit for duty.” Which they naturally would. Hux was just shaking off a bit of a stomach bug, that was all. He wouldn’t even entertain the notion that it could be anything worse. He had a _pfaasking_ superweapon to finish constructing. 

The attending medic was kind and professional enough when she finally came around to his bed, but that didn’t do anything to change the fact that Hux hated being here. He remained still as she manipulated his arms and legs to check him for any other injuries, flinching only when they got to palpating his belly. He shivered in shock and confusion when she pulled down the bed sheets and touched him through the thin fabric of the medical gown. Somehow, his belly looked even _more_ bloated than before, and worse it seemed almost misshapen, even through the garment. Maybe Hux was delirious from his ordeal, but he swore the flesh to the left of his navel stuck out more than that to the right, as if something solid was pushing out against it from inside of him. He held back the urge to vomit again when the medic touched it, pressing down on the slight lump. Much to his surprise it was soft, like the rest of his belly, but it sparked a feeling of unease inside his already unsettled guts. 

“This is the last time I eat in the same public mess hall that my men do,” Hux tried to joke, mostly to distract himself, but the medic looked far too serious for Hux to cheer up even slightly. He swallowed around the lump in his throat, feeling his anxiety creep up again as the medic summoned her assistant—a simple, standard-issue med droid—on over. 

“We’re still waiting on the results from your samples, general. In the meantime, I think it’d be prudent to get a look at what’s going on inside you.” The droid wheeled a small machine closer to Hux’s bedside, detaching what looked like a cordless plastoid baton and passing it over to the medic. 

“May I, general?” The medic asked, nodding towards the hem of Hux’s medical robe. Suddenly, he remembered that he was only wearing his briefs underneath. No way he was showing off any part of his naked body with a shadowy masked madman looming over him. 

“Ren,” Hux started, face flushed, “I would prefer if you left.” 

Ren didn’t budge. Hux grumbled. 

“ _Ren_.” 

Still nothing more than a rustle of robes. Hux sighed, making a vague gesture of permission at the medic. Carefully, she pinched the hem of his gown, and rolled it up over his bloated belly. 

Hux swallowed as bruised flesh greeted his eyes. He felt like vomiting, again. He was mottled with reddish-purple all up and down his abdomen, some of the splotches even greening at the edges, as if they’d been there awhile. Had he just not noticed? Looked away, whenever he changed, for fear of seeing some new manifestation of the illness he knew had only been growing and worsening inside of him?

Or had they really just appeared that quickly?

Hux could only hope that the medic could finally give him some answers. He watched, eyes tired, as she switched on the monitor and synced it properly with the wand as the droid produced a single-use tube of conductive gel, spreading it liberally below Hux’s navel. He shivered—it was slightly cold to the touch, unsettling sensation not helped by the pressure of the droid’s rigid attachments. He almost thought to ask the medic to apply it instead, but decided against it. 

“You’ll feel a bit of pressure. Let me know if anything hurts, alright?” The medic carefully took the wand and powered on the machine. The display flickered as it activated, currently not showing anything. Despite his anxiety, Hux decided to look at it instead of anywhere else. At least it would prevent him from having to acknowledge Ren’s presence as he got confirmation this was all _nothing_ to be concerned about. 

Hux kept his hands folded about his chest and his eyes fixed to the display. A repetitive, undulating noise filled the air, emitting from the machine. Hux repressed his scowl at the din, instead mentally noted to replace the existing devices with quiet, less anxiety-inducing models.

At least Ren was quiet. Hux had half expected him to make a crack about the little paunch he carried around his middle, but he didn’t hear a peep out of him as the medic explored Hux’s abdomen, looking for…

...Something. 

For a long while Hux didn’t see anything interesting on the monitor but the grayish, winding blobs of his intestines. His eyes started to glaze over, one tired lid developing a twitch. He was almost ready to end this and dismiss the medic, when the medic moved the wand to sit just above his navel and flicked on a switch on the monitor with a worrying _hum_. 

Hux furrowed his brow, about to ask her what was the matter, but then the display flickered to a new image and answered the question for him. His eyes widened, and he nearly choked on his tongue. 

Woven in the grey tangle of his intestines was something solid and dark, so dark it was hard to make out the details even with the high resolution of the display. It looked vaguely ovoid in shape, with slightly rippled edges that helped it cling to the nest it’d made in Hux’s abdomen. It seemed to be organic in composition, but nothing about it looked like it belonged in a human body. In _Hux’s_ body. 

As he watched in rapt horror, the image on the monitor suddenly turned—just as he felt and saw one of the rounded lumps in his belly _shift,_ pressined against his innards, movements perfectly mirrored. 

“Enough. I said, that’s enough!” Hux smacked at the baton, in his weakness and panic failing to knock it away. Terror and disbelief clutched at his chest, and he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from the screen. 

The medic reached out and rested her free hand on his arm. “General Hux, please calm down,” she started, but Hux refused. How was he supposed to calm down when that thing was sitting inside of him? Growing, spreading out, taking over _—_

“I don’t want to look at it anymore,” Hux whimpered, voice pitching with rising panic, “please, please, don’t make me look at it anymore!”

The medic wisely swiveled the monitor away from Hux before he really started shrieking. Even with it no longer facing him Hux trembled, the image burned into his mind. That—that inhuman _thing_ , twitching and writhing in his guts. Inside of him. His teary eyes felly to his belly, his bloated and bulging and invaded belly. He looked _pfaasking_ pregnant, for stars’ sake, and he hated it. The idea of something else taking shelter inside of his body, leeching off of him, sucking the strength he’d hoarded for himself and using it without his permission. Hux lifted his weary eyes up to the medbay ceiling, eager to look at nothing. The world below, and all its disgusting reality, was far too much at the moment. 

“Can you remove it?” He heard Kylo ask, no emotion found in his voice as he addressed the medic. She blew contemplative air between her lips, glow of the monitor reflected in her glasses as she examined the image. 

“We would have to run several more tests before I can safely recommend any sort of treatment. As it stands, the organism sits in a very precarious position amidst the general’s organs. Taking further images of where it’s situated and how exactly it’s attached itself, as well as retrieving a tissue sample, will be our first steps before we can look into treatment or surgery.”

“Charming,” Hux croaked, low and sardonic, eyes still fixed upwards. Both Kylo and the medic ignored him, through the latter shifted uncomfortably on her stool. 

“General, we’d like to keep you here for observation for the time being. Is there…” the medic cleared her throat, trying to give herself another moment to think about how to phrase it, “is there anything we can do for you to get you feeling more comfortable? Our facilities are not as advanced as the medbay aboard the _Finalizer_ , but we have—”

“Well,” Hux cut her off, sneering angrily, “I would love to have this abomination torn out of me, but since you apparently can’t do that…” He swiveled his eyes away from the ceiling to glare at her, deliberately not even looking at his bared belly. “...I would like to have my data pad back. And some water.” He knew he was being rehydrated from the IV in his arm, but his throat was dry and making his voice raspy and weak. He would need to host calls directly from his data pad, so he knew he must sound at least outwardly put together. 

“Of course. I’ll have the technicians bring you both.” The medic tilted her head. “And Master Ren, will you ne—”

“Ren is _leaving_ ,” Hux snapped. He heard the man in question rustle disapprovingly at his side, but tried to ignore him and hold firm to his decision. “This is a private medical matter, and I don’t authorize that he remains here any longer.”

The medic’s face blanched, clearly uneasy at being thrust into a mediating position between the two notoriously difficult commanders. 

“I, well—”

“If the general wishes I leave, then I will leave.” Ren rose in a rustle and huff of musty robes, the scent of them wafting over Hux as well as the tangible waves of discontent radiating off of Ren’s words. It took Hux aback. Ren had no reason to want to stay here, and even less of one to be angry at Hux for dismissing him. And though Hux was not happy to remain in the medbay until they figured out exactly what this _thing_ inside of him was, he thought he would feel a lot better if Ren was gone and Hux didn’t have to see him again until he fully recovered.

“Report to me any changes in his condition,” Ren said to the medic, brushing aside the curtains drawn around Hux’s bed. For a moment it almost looked like he hesitated, helmet tipped towards Hux’s annoyed expression like he wanted to say something in farewell—perhaps “good luck”—but he remained totally silent beyond the audible breathing against the mask. Hux watched him go, disappearing through the sterile white curtains, heavy boots echoing quieter and quieter until they vanished completely. 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like I don't know what to say in these chapter notes other than "things continue to get worse for Hux."
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: body horror

Hux stuck to his belief that he’d be out of the medbay within the cycle, that somewhere in the depths of the First Order’s extensive knowledge about infectious diseases from all over the galaxy the lab techs would be able to unearth some way to eradicate the thing inside of him for good. But apparently, his confidence in their abilities was misplaced, because it had been three cycles of increasingly irritating tests and long stretches of nothing but resting and picking at the meager meals and paper cups of water they gave him to quell his boredom. 

The tests, to Hux’s knowledge, have born no useful conclusion yet. The medic who first examined his abdomen tried to keep him informed of the results of every bit of bloodwork and imaging and tissue sampling, but it was evident by her expression and the way she inserted superfluous language into her statements that she was trying to keep him placated by stretching what little information she has into something distractingly substantial. The most worrying insight had come late the cycle before, when another one scan of his belly found that the creature had shifted position—its tendrils growing, starting to poke through the tangle of Hux’s intestines. Spreading outward, upward. Almost like it was searching for something. 

Hux tried not to think about it every time his stomach burbled in hunger or twitched innocuously. It was hard not to ascribe every little movement or sensation as a result of the creature’s growth and obstruction inside of his body. Now that he’d seen what it looked like, it haunted his thoughts. He’d even woken up with nightmares more times than he was proud of, and spent the rest of the cycle shaking off the image of the thing growing and growing until it sprouted out of his skin, twining around his helpless body like a cage of horrible, fleshly vines. 

There wasn’t much in the monotone and fairly empty medbay to distract him from such visions. But at the very least, he had his datapad, though he wishes the medics would give him back his uniform so he didn’t have to go through the extra effort of hiding the fact that he was stripped down and clad only in a papery, quilted medbay robe. It was a hassle to tend to his duties without access to his office, but he made do for the time being. Though he was loathed to do it, he’d even delegated some of his other tasks to some of his more trusted lieutenants. Beyond that, there was little more he could do other than lie back and pray the _Finalizer_ , Starkiller’s construction, and the entire _pfaasking_ First Order wouldn’t come completely off the rails before he fully recovered. 

In the meantime, there was little more for Hux to do but hope a solution to his predicament was found soon before it got worse. 

Much to his consternation, Ren hadn’t departed Starkiller entirely once he’d sent him away from the medbay. Hux doesn’t know where he’s staying, but he imagines Ren’s commandeered the quarters of some poor low-level officer who hadn’t the courage or stupidity to say no to him. Or perhaps he’s squatting in some dark corner of the base, living on scraps and going slightly feral. Either would fit. 

Ren came and went as he pleased, which was irritating, especially since Hux didn't have that same luxury. He honestly wished Ren would just _go_ , as there was little sense in the First Order having both of its commanders cooped up in the medbay nor reason for him to watch over Hux as if he'd been assigned his legal guardian. Ren had always had some kind of excuse to avoid interacting with Hux in the past—why he hadn’t headed off on one of his missions or another round of nebulous “training” was beyond Hux’s understanding. 

Even more baffling was the fact that Ren seemed to be treating him with an inordinate degree of kindness. Which is to say, _any_ kindness coming from Ren was inordinate, and therefore surprising and notable. 

Not only did he sit by his side a lot more than Hux thought necessary, but he also paid close attention to how the medical staff treated Hux, and often wound up requesting amenities for him that Hux would’ve never thought to ask for. Extra pillows, larger cups for water, a higher dose of painkillers for when the cramping in Hux’s stomach grew far too severe to bear on his own. Ren even ensured that Hux got a different meal the next day when he complained about the presence of beebleberry jam—which he was mildly allergic to—smeared all over the toast on his breakfast tray. 

“Why are you doing this?” Hux finally asked on the fourth cycle, exhausted by a night of little sleep thanks to the thing inside of him and frustrated about the lack of forthcoming information from the medics despite _more_ scheduled testing. Ren sat in the little plastic chair by the bed, looking like his weight might collapse it any second. It was truly an absurd sight to behold—a man known for crushing enemies mercilessly on the battlefield, squeezed into a little chair and fiddling with something in his hands that Hux hadn’t cared to take a closer look at until now. At the very least, he knows it wasn't his saber, and thank the stars for that. Hux didn't want that unstable thing out in the open when he was in such a delicate state. Instead, he watched the toolkit floating in the air next to the tray with his half-eaten lunch atop it, a screwdriver or bolt occasionally summoned by Ren’s fingers. 

“Doing what?” Ren said, not looking up from his work. In between his fingers, Hux could see exposed wiring and the shiny chips of a motherboard. “This?”

“No. I meant more...overall…” Hux moved his hand to gesture around the room, then grew tired and weakly let it rest back against his chest. “I told you, you weren’t needed. You refused to listen. Why?”

“ _Mmm_.” The answer was noncommittal and hardly told Hux anything about Ren’s thoughts or reasoning. He scowled, hating the helmet even more. Apart from being ugly and unnecessary, it blocked any insight he might get into Ren’s head by blocking his facial expressions. Hux had come to understand, during his tenure as a general, that there was much to be learned from an individual by his face. But Ren denied him that, and this fact frustratesdHux nearly as much as his continued, inexplicable presence did. 

“That’s not really an answer.” Hux pointed out. “What’s the point in your being here if you’re not even very good at filling the silence?”

“Starkiller is still under construction,” Ren finally gave him an actual response, though he didn't stop fiddling with the device in his hands, “these bases may look secure to the untrained eye or any supervisor trying to impress and assure you, but they’re riddled with security flaws. Things aren’t as airtight as they appear.”

“Is that supposed to be a slight against me?” Hux raised his eyebrow, lips pinching into an annoyed grimace.

“Not at all,” Ren continued, surprisingly swerving around a chance to mock Hux’s work. “But it raises the concern that a man of your standing may be vulnerable to anyone capable of overwhelming a scantily armed medical team. Or sneaking through when they aren’t looking.”

Hux’s other eyebrow raised to match its sibling.

“You believe someone would try to kill me in my bed?”

“It’s not outside the realm of possibility, I—” Ren shifted a hand away from his work to tap his helmet, “—am capable of hearing things you cannot. Of anticipating treachery before it slithers its way out into the open.”

“So, you’re saying you’ve been haunting my bed periodically in order to preclude my own men from assassinating me?” 

It sounded like ludicrous reasoning on many grounds. Firstly, every trooper and officer under his command was _expertly_ trained and indoctrinated with First Order propaganda, and undergo quarterly evaluations by psychological staff to determine whether reconditioning was advisable. Hux was naturally suspicious, but thought it highly unlikely anyone who even knew that he was stuck in the medbay would’ve fallen through the cracks like that. 

And secondly, most importantly, when the hell had Ren ever cared about whether Hux lived or died?

“I suppose I am. Would you still prefer I left?”

Hux still suspected there was more to Ren’s reasoning than what he was letting on. But for now, he’d accept it, at least until Ren did something foolish. He’d been so quiet and well-behaved, he seemed due for another tantrum. 

Hux sighed, shifting in his bed. It was growing harder and harder to find a comfortable position that he hadn’t already grown bored of. 

“Not unless you can take me with you.” Hux rubbed his temples. “They haven’t found a damned thing, I’m pretty sure I’d be better off in my own quarters. Give me the tool and I’ll dig the stupid thing out of my guts myself. I’d rather do that, just to get it over with.”

Ren was quiet for a moment, the only sound the beep and pulse of the monitors. Then he returned his attention to the contraption in his hands, fiddling with one last detail before floating it between his cupped palms. 

“What is that, anyway?” Hux asked. 

“A failsafe,” Ren replied cryptically, leaning towards the bed. Before Hux could say a word to stop him, he affixed it somewhere beneath the sparse bedframe, just out of sight of anything who wasn’t looking for it. Hux pursed his lips, dubious. 

“Failsafe?”

“It’s impractical for me to be at your bedside every second of every cycle until you’ve recovered. Not that I’d have an interest in doing that, even if it wasn’t,” Ren said, tight tone oddly suggesting some mistruth to his statement. 

“So?”

“So if you’re in need of...let's call it, ‘assistance,’” Ren continued, still fiddling with the unseen device, “just touch this. It’ll dissuade any potential attackers.”

A beat. The Hux heard a small _blip_ , the device being armed. He pinched his brows together. 

“Ren, I swear, if you’ve attached a _pfaasking_ bomb to my bed, I’ll throttle you.”

Ren hummed in amusement at that. “Oh, general. Why would I go through the trouble of blowing you up in your bed, when I could just reach over and snap your pathetic neck right now?”

“You’re the absolute worst when it comes to being reassuring, you know that?” But oddly, Ren’s gruesome wording did reassure Hux a little bit. He was right, after all—Hux was more or less helpless in the bed, infirm as he was. If Ren had wanted to kill him, he’d already passed up on thousands of opportunities. 

Hux tried not to think any deeper on that. It was probably only on orders from Snoke that Ren didn’t dispatch him as soon as he had the chance. 

Ren rose, cloak a rustle on the medbay’s pale linoleum. Hux lifted his chin, until his eyes locked with the impassive visor of Ren’s helmet. For a moment, silence. Hux thought to say something, though he didn't quite know what, but Ren beat him to it. 

“Then I’ll take my leave of you, general. Remember—if you ever sense a threat, use the device.” Ren parted the curtains around Hux’s bed, turning his head and breaking their locked gazes. “The Order would heavily mourn the loss of its top general, should something happen to you.”

Without another word, Ren disappeared. 

* * *

From then on, Ren’s visits became a little less frequent. Oddly, instead of enjoying this, Hux found himself missing Ren when he wasn't there. Despite his sulky and oftentimes cryptic demeanor, he was far better company than the medics, who Hux found himself increasingly irritated with as his condition worsened without explanation. They assured him that they had all available personnel working to study and suss out what was wrong with him, but as time wore on, Hux started to wonder whether that was just a lie to keep him happy—or at least, _accepting_ of his current state. Like an imprisoned dog, resigned to its fate within the cage. 

It wasn't far off. The more Hux thought about it, the more he was starting to liken the medbay to a prison he couldn't break free from, rather than a place dedicated to curing his condition. Ren's visits ended up keeping Hux reminded of that fact—that there was still a whole world beyond the dull, limited circuit Hux was permitted to walk between his bed and the refresher. To save him the indignity of a bedpan, at least for now. He truly hoped he'd be released with a clean bill of health before that happened. 

“...I’ve never enjoyed being in the medbay…medbays in general, honestly,” Hux commented during one of Ren's visits, voice thin and watery from making use of the emesis tray. At least the medic had kindly mopped the reddish fluid from Hux’s lips, before leaving him and Ren alone together. 

“To my knowledge, they aren’t meant to be enjoyable.”

Hux sniffed. “But they could do a lot better to make the stay more bearable. I’ve only been here a little under a week, and I feel like I’m one bland mouthful of denta beans away from going absolutely mental.” Hux never thought he would miss the taste of ration bars, but he could really go for one of his usual meal replacements and a nice cup of caf right about now. 

“Considering your...condition. Shouldn’t you be grateful that you’re even alive right now?”

Hux rolled his eyes. 

“I don’t know why I expected you to understand.”

“Understand what, exactly, general.”

“Stars. Surely you understand how frustrating it is to feel,” Hux works spit up in his mouth, before whispering the world, “hapless? Maddened about a state of being you’re unable to change? Ren, I doubt you’re so inhuman that you’ve never in your life felt that way.”

Hux saw him flinch beneath his thick robes. “What makes you say that?”

“You wouldn’t have that mask, otherwise.”

Sure, there were other reasons one might wear a mask. Protection. To conceal one’s identity. And sure, those were both reasons that probably factored into Ren’s choice to wear the damn thing everywhere he went. 

But Hux was helpless in the bed, he couldn’t lift a finger to harm Ren if he wanted to. They were alone, with the medics having moved to tend to other patients, casualties brought in from a mine collapse somewhere else on the base.(of which Hu had been informed of, his general duties And Hux had already seen his face. It’d been years, true, but there wasn’t anything beneath the helmet, presumably, that Hux hadn’t already seen when Snoke had brought that stray dog with surprising pedigree into the Order’s ranks. 

Ren tried to remain unmoved and impassive, but Hux could tell he was ruminating on what he’d just said. 

In a way, Hux already understood why Ren concealed himself. His uniform served a similar function to Ren's helmet and rags, he imagined: a barrier between himself and the rest of the world. Something he could control, something that symbolized his rank, all the suffering and sacrifice he’d been through to get to this point. And now it had all been stripped away, replaced by flimsy paper nightgowns that barely kept him covered. It was a terrible feeling. He couldn't imagine Ren was all that eager to experience something similar for himself. 

But still, Hux wanted it. He wanted to feel like he wasn't the only one with weaknesses on display. 

“It’s a symbol of control,” Ren abruptly replied, voice a little short and staccato, “It’s a reclamation of my identity. It’s. It’s my own strength. Incarnate. Taking form.”

“Really?” Hux raised an eyebrow. “That clunky thing?”

“Watch your tongue, general. Illness has emboldened you to take too many liberties with your speech.”

“Right. Lest you ‘snap my neck’ in my bed.” Despite reiterating Ren’s earlier threat, Hux took on a tone of levity. Maybe it was only due to his illness lowering his inhibitions, but he suddenly felt less uneasy and on edge in Ren’s presence. Strange. 

But not unwelcome. 

“What strength do you have to prove in here, Ren? You’re amongst the infirm and injured. You’re easily the strongest person within the base. Why the need to still wear that thing?”

“If I didn’t know any better, I would say perhaps you _wanted_ me to take off my helmet, general.”

“Hmm. What would you say if I did?”

“I would say you are overstepping your boundaries.”

“And you aren’t?” Hux scoffed. “You’ve seen me sick, half-naked, pathetic. Stripped of everything but my skivvies as those hacks poked around my innards. And through it all you’ve insisted on staying and watching me waste away, miserably, here, without offering much aid apart from your little device and not much agreeable company.” 

“So. You are saying, it’s the least I could do to remove my helmet?”

“I would feel better if we were on more equal footing, yes." Hux plucked at the hem of his gown. "You’re lucky I’m not commanding you wear a humiliating, backless garments like the one I’m sporting.”

“You’re not really in a position to be commanding anything of me,” Ren retorted, but straightened up in his chair. His hands slide around to the back of his helmet, head slightly bowed. Hux heard a click, a whir, and a soft _hiss_ as the servomotors disengaged, releasing a cascade of Ren’s hair down the back of his neck as he removed the mask. 

Though Hux had seen Ren’s face before, it took him a little off guard now. He looked older than Hux remembered, though perhaps the lines in his skin and the bluish bags under his eyes were a consequence of exhaustion rather than age. Though Hux couldn't think of any reason Ren would have to be exhausted. Presumably, he had a nice quarters set up here on Starkiller, or perhaps a cot inside of his shuttle. He was able to get in as much sleep as he wanted, without having to be awoken and prodded with all manner of unpleasant machinery for the sake of equally unpleasant tests of his bodily fluids. Hux wished he had such a luxury. 

“There. Does that...put us on ‘equal footing,’ as you put it?” Ren intoned, voice now without the characteristic deepening of the vocoder. Hux squirmed beneath the thin medbay blanket at the naked, uncompromised sound that mellowed in his ears. In exposing Ren, he somehow felt _more_ exposed himself. Yet it didn’t feel as unpleasant as he thought it should. 

Ren settled the helmet in his lap, one hand coming to rest atop it, as if he were a krayt dragon guarding a hoarded treasure. He stroked the glossy, cracked surface with his thumb, leather on metal, as he wetd his lips. 

“I wouldn’t call it a moment of helplessness, general,” Ren said when he notes Hux wasn’t speaking up, “But I have been admitted to a medbay before.”

When I was... _younger_ ,” Ren started slow, choosing each word with cautious precision, as if expecting Hux to interject after every syllable, “an incident. With a droid. Landed me in serious condition. I couldn’t move for the pain.”

Ren caressed a shallow crack cut into the top of his helmet, contemplative, drawing slow patterns with the leather tip of his glove that caught Hux’s eyes. 

“How old were you?”

Ren snorted.

“Old enough to realize the medics were stretching the truth when they told me everything was going to be fine. I knew they just didn’t want me to panic with the reality that I may have lost my limb.”

“Well. That must have been all well and good for you. With a _physical_ ailment that can be easily understood and fixed.” Hux let out a heavy sigh. At least Ren was making an _attempt_ to relate to his struggles, even if it’d fallen a little short in reality. “At this rate, I’m not sure they’ll ever determine what this _thing_ is. I’m afraid if I leave it wholly up to them, I’ll just rot here.” A sudden idea hit Hux, and he looked up from his shaky hands towards Ren. “Unless…”

Ren lifted his head. 

“Unless?”

Suddenly bolstered with hope, Hux continued. “You…you can figure it out, can you? You’ve said it yourself. You can sense things others cannot.” Hux may not be getting much sleep lately, but his memory was sharp. He’d kept track of everything Ren had said during these trying times, just in case he needed to defend himself against slander later on. 

Ren’s eyes flitted from Hux’s malformed belly to his face. 

“You’re not incorrect.”

“Then you could tell me whatever these ditherers and layabouts won’t.” Hux settled his hand on his hip, still too afraid to touch his misshapen abdomen properly. He had once, on accident, and felt the thing move under his skin, so violently Hux had feared it might tear through. Now, he tried not to make a habit of touching it. But Ren could. Maybe Ren even had the power to kill the thing outright. That would be the best-case scenario—just flush the damn parasite out of him, and be done with it. 

Still, Ren hesitated. 

“I may not be able to help but...I will try.” He managed a smirk. “For you, general, anything.”

“Oh, don’t be cute. Just do it.” 

“Very well.”

Hux took a shallow breath as Ren lifted his hand, the great leather-clad paw coming to hover over the irregular terrain of his belly. He tried not to look at it for long periods of time, lest he risk feeling even more ill at the sight, but right now Hux couldn’t tear his eyes away as he watched Ren’s palm slowly come to rest against his swollen abdomen. It didn’t hurt, but having even more pressure on his bruised and stretched skin wasn’t pleasant, and Hux winced. 

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Keep going.” Hux airily waved his hand. “Just...do your thing.”

Hux found himself switching between watching Ren’s hand and watching Ren. He saw as the man focused intensely on his belly, his fingers twitching quick and minute, like vibrating strings freshly plucked. Ren’s face shuttered with concentration, eyebrows furrowed and dark eyes both distant and bright. 

Hux’s skin prickled, on the back of his neck and along his forearms. The temperature in the room dipped, air growing more staticky and thick as Ren summoned the Force to his palm. The muscles in his abdomen twitched at the touch, and Hux could feel the parasite stirring even further beneath. He swallowed around the thick lump in his throat, unsure whether to look at Ren’s hand or the ceiling. Oddly, he wound up settling on his co-commander’s face, trying to trust in his focus, his competence in this particular area. Hux didn’t put much stock in his supernatural abilities normally, but at this point he was at the end of his rope, willing to try anything if it meant ending his suffering. 

Then all at once, deep inside of him, something _moved_. No, not moved. _Thrashed_ , violently, so violently Hux let out a scream of shock and pain as the parasite lurched towards Ren’s palm. Hux’s spine arched off the bed, scream garbled as sick rushed up his throat and out of his mouth. He turned his head to the side and vomited over his pillow, gagging on a couple aspirated drops. His belly churned, roiled, _seethed_. It hurt. 

Oh stars, it hurt. As if someone had taken a knife, chilled for millennia in the deepest, most desolate vacuum of space, and driven it straight to his core. 

In his agony, Hux failed to notice the plastic crash of the flimsy bedside chair as Ren surged to his feet, knocking it over. Nor did he make note of the man’s face as the medics rushed in and crowded him away, not until Hux by happenstance fluttered open his eyes and managed to catch a glimpse of Ren above the shoulder of a female medic holding the emesis basin. 

He looked absolutely terrified. 

Then the helmet returned to cover it all up, and Ren swept away, leaving Hux to shudder and seize as a procured sedative coursed through his veins until he ultimately, _mercifully_ , blacked out against the medbay bed. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a short chapter, but an important one. We're entering the climax here, folks! 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: body horror, medical abuse

Hux spent the day after Ren’s sudden departure trying to work from his datapad. The previous day’s ordeal had left him weak and achy, but he had an inbox full of updates on Starkiller’s construction, line items to approve, budgets to oversee. It grew hard to concentrate on the text crawling across the screen and come up with coherent orders, but he tried his best to push through it, to bring more of that legendary-to-the-point-of-infamous Hux determination and worth ethic to the table. But as the day wore on and he suffered more interruptions, both for tests and the thrashing movement of the parasite still growing within his bruised, yellowed belly, he grew wearier and wearier. Even so, he ignored the head medic’s insistence that he sleep, and waved off more sedatives, eyes fever-bright and resolute. 

He eventually fell asleep on his own, with the datapad resting against his chest, hand protectively atop it. When he woke up, it was gone. 

Every medic he asked insisted they didn’t know what happened to it. 

* * *

By the second and third day, Hux noticed more and more of the medics starting to wear masks around him. 

He thought it was a little ridiculous. Sure, he coughed up brownish sputum from time to time but other than that, he was pretty sure he wasn’t contagious. It was a damn _parasite_ , not a virus, they should understand the basics of their own damn career paths. Perhaps the masks were just a precaution, but it didn’t help to soothe Hux’s nerves. Though, at this point, little did. 

As he stared at the flat, motionless curtains surrounding his bed he found he missed the bare face of Ren, fleeting as it had been. There had been something to cling to, then, some shred of unexpected humanity in such a grim and sterile place. And now that was gone, scared off, fled to some unknown location where Hux couldn’t reach him. 

When Hux slept, he dreamt Ren had returned, laying in bed alongside him, broad hand braced against his mercifully flat belly. 

* * *

Hux spent the fourth day vomiting. More of that black, bloody tar that tasted thick and metallic. Nausea constantly swam through his head, cramps wracking his bloated belly as he purged what seemed like an endless stream of the stuff into the assisting droid’s proffered basin. 

The medics assured him he wasn’t bleeding internally, despite the parasite’s continued growth and violence. When pressed, they refused to tell him any more. Hux spent the night sobbing dry, fruitless screams into his pillow. 

* * *

He didn’t remember much of the fifth day. 

* * *

The sixth was spent trying to contact Ren. 

When the medics left him alone for a nap in between tests, he managed to carefully drag his IV stand and heart monitor over to the little closet built into the wall of the room. He searched for his datapad through the sealed bag of his old clothing, hoping someone had merely grabbed it and stowed it with the rest of his personal effects, but he found nothing.

Hopeless, Hux sat in bed and tried something he had never once in his life ever considered—meditation. Meditation not like the sort recommended by psychologists and holistic health gurus to relieve stress, but meditation like the kind Ren performed. Someone of his stature hardly had any reason to believe in nonsense like the Force, apart from its demonstratable combat capabilities, but to hell with it. He was hardly the distinguished man from before, who would sneer at Ren’s baubles and trinkets and magic tricks. He needed a miracle. 

So he sat himself up in the bed, shakily crossing legs that’d grown far thinner than their already slim state on nearly two weeks of fluids and mushed-up medbay food. He relied on the steady _beep_ of the heart monitor to measure his pulse as he deliberately tried to relax, to calm down bit by bit, to somehow _connect_ with the only man he foresaw ever springing him from this sterile hellhole. 

Ren had once called him a “Force-Null,” somewhat disparagingly highlighting his lack of any sort of mystical affinity, but Hux had never backed down or resigned himself to uselessness before. And despite _all this_ , he didn’t want to start now. 

Nothing, for a long while, but the veined darkness on the inside of Hux’s eyelids, the flat, entreating echoes in his mind. Then—a change. A presence. A question. Hux sharply took in a breath. He swore he could sense _something_ , something familiar, something that could help. Ren. His heart leaped, monitor stickied to his chest spiking with hope. 

Then the parasite punched upwards, against his diaphragm like a lone starfighter breaking through enemy lines, and Hux let out a choked scream of agony that pulled every medic in the immediate area to his bedside. This time, they didn’t give him a chance to refuse more sedatives. 

* * *

It was a full week before everything completely went to hell. 

This time, medics approached him like they would a crazed, injured beast, which infuriated Hux. He knew they viewed him as little more than that at this point—something weak and pitiable. 

He had refused their latest test. Hux was fed up with the constant parade of tissue samples and blood drawings and tubes constantly being fed into his skin. He was fed up with their insistence that they knew what was best for him, when _he_ knew they had no idea what was wrong with him. He knew they were only trying to placate him, to keep him trapped here, to shake their heads and _tsk_ at how feeble he was becoming as they gave him palliative care at best. 

“General,” the medic said, low and warning, previous kindness worn out and haggard, “if you continue to refuse testing, we’ll have no option but to place you into quarantine.”

“Quarantine?” Hux croaked, body tense in the bed, as if he could hope to make a break for it. “You’ll do no such thing. You haven’t the authority. You haven’t the nerve.” He didn’t try to stop his voice from edging into a threatening growl. 

“If you refuse to cooperate, we’ll have no other option. Please understand, it’s to ensure the safety of both yourself and our staff—”

“ _Traitor_ ,” Hux interrupted, shouting as loud as his voice could manage, “you’re all _pfaasking_ traitors! I’ll have your heads for this!” He levered a shaky finger right at the head medic’s face. “I _order_ you to stay back. I order you to cease with these useless tests unless you are sure they’ll actually do something to figure out what the hell’s wrong. Other than that, I refuse to,” he takes a moment to cough and spit up down the front of his gown, “I refuse to be treated like a d-damn animal any longer.”

Hux didn’t know what he thought was going to happen. Perhaps he assumed the medics would take his opinion into consideration, or back down from his temper. But he probably should have expected them to try to hold him down and force him to comply with their demands. 

“Unhand me!” Hux screamed hoarsely, thrashing around in his bed. The head medic threw her head over her shoulder, yelling for backup as she tried to hold Hux’s hips down against the thin mattress. Inside of him, the _thing_ jerked as frantically as he did, thrashing and pressing against his skin until it stretched, translucent, as if it could rip him open and escape. Hux screamed louder as leather belts strapped over his struggling legs, no words, just animal rage and terror and frustration. He felt like he was suffocating, a feeling that only grew as more medics closed in around him, hemming him in, ready to steal the last pathetic scrap of his freedom. 

_Where the hell was Ren?_ A part of Hux still hated the idea of calling for him, through the Force or the pure raw volume of his voice, but Ren was the only one who could save him now, who could convince these people that he was still useful, that he didn’t have to be thrown away and locked up, that he could still _fight_ , that he could still beat this thing if only someone gave him the chance—

Then suddenly, he remembered. 

Hux jackknifed in the bed as the medic on his right grabbed his arm, keeping his wrist pressed tightly against the bed. Another swept up to his other side, trying to seize his other flailing arm, but before they could grab it, hold him down and render him completely helpless, Hux flung his hand out and under the bed, groping with shaky fingers until he finally found _it_.

Without any hesitation, Hux pressed down upon the button, activating the strange device Ren had affixed to his bed over a week ago. 

The air around him suddenly exploded, filled with a concussive _shriek_ that rattled the walls and knocked everything—monitors, curtains, restraints, and medics alike—away from Hux’s bed with stunning force. For a moment, Hux swore his heart stopped, head throbbing and vision swimming as he tried to grasp what’d just happened. The whine of the disconnected, flatlined machines pierced through the white noise cluttering the forefront of his mind, but as he stared and swam in and out of consciousness, even that faded, replaced only by one word, repeating, in a voice that he couldn’t tell was his own or not:

“ _Run_.”

And so Hux did. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for this chapter:** vomiting, body horror, gore, gruesome imagery, brief suicidal ideation 
> 
> Not kidding for this one. Things get pretty gross and creepy.
> 
> Featuring another one of wildfang's lovely art pieces!

Hux didn’t know whether the downed medics were alive or dead and didn’t stop to check. He hardly cared whether they had lived through the effects of whatever unstable device Ren had installed in his bed. 

After all, they thought they could control him. Keep him under lock and key. _Forget_ about him.

They had all underestimated him. They deserved whatever happened to them. 

Hux’s bare feet slapped against the hallway outside his room as he sprinted, ducking into an open refresher door and throwing it shut behind him before any other medics came to their fallen comrades’ aid. His free hand trembled but still he managed to latch the lock behind him. Blood leaked from the bend of his elbow, where the saline IV had punctured deep through the skin. A lot of blood, but he felt little pain or noticeable lightheadedness. Strange. Hux knew reality was a far cry from the histrionic holodramas that depicted patients tearing out their monitors without suffering any ill effects. He knew that was far from the truth, and yet here he was.

The paper gown was practically hanging off his frame, having fallen off of him in the chaos and his mad dash away from the scene of the crime. With his free hand, he pawed at it, managing after a few seconds of fumbling to rip it off the rest of the way. He hated his own fragile nudity, but anything was better than the rub of the material, that had grown quite maddening over the week, like he was already being embalmed and shrouded for burial. 

In his other hand, he held his monomolecular blade, snatched from the bag of his personal effects as he’d fled. 

Hux’s back hit the wall of the refresher and he slid, legs giving out beneath him. Now sitting, he gripped the blade tightly in his lap, staring at it. It stared back, reflecting the dim, greenish light above. 

His heart throbbed painfully, pulse slowing down only a little now that he sat on the floor. He swallowed around a firm bulge in his throat, eyes fixed on the blade gripped in his hand. 

Hux remembered early promises of surgery from the medic. He remembered believing them, back when he had hope he’d be out of here in only a few short days. He’d gone along with their lies. Well. No longer. 

They never truly wanted to help him. That much was obvious now. They’d poked and prodded him as if he were some kind of lab animal, their fascination lying more with the _thing_ growing inside of him than his welfare. None of them cared about him. None of them were all that concerned whether he would die. Least of all _Ren_ , who would probably gloat to Supreme Leader Snoke about how weak his co-commander had been, how glad Ren was that he was gone for good. Ren, who hadn’t come for him, not even when he’d begged him to return. Not even when he’d tried to use the blasted _Force_ to reach him. 

Hux clenched his teeth, fingers curling around the handle of his monomolecular blade. It was high time that he took matters into his own hands, instead of waiting around for others to act. 

Hux gripped the blade in his left hand, lifting it up and turning the point inwards. He focused on a spot across the room, a bit of newly laid tile on the wall. He steeled himself, muscles tense, as he brought the tip of the knife to rest against his middle. He would show each and every one of them. He would show them all he wasn’t weak. 

Hux sunk the tip of the blade into the left side of his abdomen, near the dominant hand that held it. He kept his teeth gritted, fighting down his screams as he pushed it in deeper, deeper. Pain spiked through him, worse than that of the tests and injections, worse even than the unnecessary and invasive medical exams he remembered from his youth. His body screamed in agony as he started to drag the knife across his belly, seeking the parasite that writhed and throbbed beneath his skin—but it was _his_ pain, he controlled it, he was the knife and the master of his own fate, he would rip this thing out of his guts and show them, show them all he didn’t need to be quarantined away like an animal, show them all he wasn’t weak wasn’t pathetic wasn’t worthless wasn’t—

Hux screamed through his teeth and pushed the blade in deeper right beside his navel. He felt the parasite squirm, pushing up against his diaphragm and squeezing his lungs against his ribs, trying to force him to stop. Blood spilled down into Hux’s lap, staining the stark flooring beneath him. 

In a fight against his own body, Hux would win. He _had_ to.

He would prove it to everyone. He wasn’t weak. 

But neither was the enemy inside of him. As Hux tried to push the knife in deeper, the parasite’s movements grew harsher, more violent. It smashed into his stomach, forcing bitter-tasting saliva up the back of Hux’s throat. It nearly made him gag, but after a moment he swallowed it down and pressed onward. 

“Y-You...you can’t escape…” Hux spat down at his belly, watching the bruised and misshapen skin churn as the parasite wiggled away from the knifepoint. “I...I have you _cornered_ …” 

Hux didn’t know whether it would try to kill him before he killed it, but he wasn’t going to wait to find out. He was going to carve the damn thing out of his guts, and if it didn’t want to leave?

Then he would die trying. Death would be greater dignity than wasting away in a bed until he developed sores and couldn’t even use the toilet on his own. At least this way, he would go out fighting.

He would go out like a general. 

Hux took a deep breath, restrengthening his grip on the knife’s hilt, and closed his eyes. He could feel the parasite writhe just shy of the tip of the blade. So close. Almost done. He tensed his muscles, preparing to push with one last thrust, to end it all, so he could finally be free—

 _Don’t_.

Hux froze. Again, the voice inside of his mind, echoing like a droplet of water in a wide, still cave. He remained rigid for a moment, blood oozing down his abdomen, blade still half-buried inside of him. He felt the parasite churn again, but this time he felt it in his head, his _mind_ , seeping in like sinister cold creeping under the doorframe of an unsuspecting home. 

_Don’t_. Again, undeniably, that voice. Distinct from his own internal thoughts. Snaking through his bones, his veins, preying on his nerves all the way up to his brain. Hux’s fingers twitched of their own accord, grip faltering on the handle of the knife. _Don’t be a fool, Armitage_. 

A sob ripped out of Hux’s throat as his arm jolted, driven by uncontrollable, abortive spasms in his muscles. Pain lanced through his belly as his numb fingers tugged the blade free of his stomach, away from the monster he was trying to kill, and dropped it on the floor, smearing more of Hux’s blood on the already tarnished tiles. 

_Good_. 

Tears welled up in Hux’s eyes as he stared at the fallen blade, as if trying to comprehend why exactly he’d dropped it. Try as he might, he couldn’t summon enough strength, enough willpower, to reach forward and snatch it up again, plunge it back inside his belly—or maybe even run it across his throat, end it all in one fell swoop. 

He could do nothing at all as unnatural energy flooded through his body, throughout every nerve, leaking out of every pore until his cells hummed with a foreign feeling, like electricity fed through a previously inert conductive coil. Independent of his own will, his fingers flexed into fists, as if testing out their dexterity for the first time. 

“N-No...stop…” Hux insisted meekly as his body worked its legs underneath him, trying to push it up into a standing position. He felt half numb, running on autopilot, controlled by something else. It—it must be the _thing_ , but how? How was it possible for it to overtake him like this? Wasn’t it little more than a stubborn, invasive abdominal parasite?

 _Bang_. A tremendous knock rattled the locked door behind him, and with the noise, pain suddenly lanced through Hux’s head. He cringed, grabbing at his skull and doubling over. Something inside of him throbbed, beyond just the physical pain and pressure of the parasite. The cold continued to creep through his body, up through his abdomen and into his heart, crawling up his spinal cord as if the vertebrae were the steps of a temple, his head, his _mind_ the altar where some horrible sacrifice was to take place. 

_Bang_. The door, the entire room, the universe around Hux trembled. He heard a voice on the other side, hoarse and angry. 

“Hux! Open this door, I know you’re in there!”

 _Ren_. Hux recognized him immediately, but before he could open his mouth to respond the pain shrieked in his head again, howling so loudly whatever Ren said next turned into a garble of static in Hux’s ears. He stumbled backward, fingers digging into his temples, eyes streaming. His bare toes skated through his own blood, smearing it against the tile floor. 

_Don’t let him in_.

Hux’s lips parted, intending to call Ren off, but it was too late—with another bang and a loud, metallic _screech_ , the door slammed clear out of its frame and landed with a resounding _crash_ against the tile floor of the refresher. Ren stormed in like a bolt of black wind, clothing filthy, mask removed, eyes wild with anger and worry and _fear_ that Hux could sense, suddenly, intimately, in a way he never had before, as if he and Ren shared some form of direct, strange link into each other’s psyches.

Flashes of imagery cut across Hux’s vision—the surface of a blue-green planet through a narrow viewport, a skeleton of a vast building scattered with twisted, burnt corpses, the blinding, saturated red of the Supreme Leader’s throne, Snoke’s long fingers lifted, mid-order, Ren’s head bowed in understanding, even with regret and shock in his dark eyes— 

The voice surged to the forefront of Hux’s mind, commanding in a rasping, tinny tone. 

_He’s in your way. Do it. Kill him. **Kill him**_ **.**

Hux threw out his hand just as Ren did, and the air around them both suddenly thickened with pressure, two invisible forces clashing and immolating each other in mid-air. The impact threw Hux off his feet, sending him careening back into the sink. The porcelain lip caught him in the spine, and he shrieked in pain, eyes popping with color as the voice inside of his continued to scream, command him, snake through his veins and nerves and try to _control_ him, a Pavlovian puppeteer with strings attached to every last one of his cells. 

Through his swimming, darkening vision, Hux could just barely see the blurry black mass of Ren as he struggled, wavering to his feet. Once again, Hux’s hand jerked up of its own accord, but Ren beat him to it—shooting across the room and clamping his thumb and forefinger like a vise around Hux’s temples. The raging commands inside of his skull rose to a fevered pitch, and for a moment Hux thought for certain his mind would explode from the high-pressure noise alone, but then a pulse of sensation lanced through his temples, and any consciousness he had left dropped like a leaden weight, leaving him in total darkness. 

* * *

_White, again_. 

_Only this time, Hux didn’t wait, didn’t sit around in the bed until the window opened up to him. He didn’t call for his father nor look down at his wasting body. He forced himself up, and to the papery walls, and he dug his frayed fingernails into it, pulled it away like chunks of fat or skin, pulling it off in strips and great, ragged gashes until he had a hole big enough to step through._

_The shore of Arkanis looked darker than it had before, sky taking on a greenish-grey hue, like a bruise several days old. Hux stepped out onto the cold grass and felt the cold wind. Rain was coming, and soon, if the heavy, swollen clouds were much indication._

_He followed the familiar path down the small knoll to the shore, through the skittering pebbles and still grass. Only when he saw his feet in the sand did he realize that he was wearing his boots again, his thin, almost skeletal feet hidden by sleek, powerful black. When he lifted his hands to his face, he found them comfortably clad in clean leather._

_Examining himself, Hux found he was clothed in full parade dress. Jacket, jodhpurs, greatcoat, the works. Even his cap, which he hadn’t worn in some time, sat proudly fixed atop his head._

_Puzzled, Hux continued walking down to the waterline, hem of his coat fluttering in the slight breeze. Once there he scanned the horizon, compelled to look but unsure exactly of what he expected to find. He seemed to stay there, staring, for so long that the salt crusted on his pale eyelashes, but just as he was about to turn away and solemnly slink back to the room of white, he spotted a dark shape in the water._

_Something bobbed in the waves, far out beyond the drop off point. Hux squinted, unable to make out what it was. Born on the tide, it slowly floated closer and closer to shore. The coarse, damp sand sunk under Hux’s boots as he approached the waterline, the object eventually washing in on a larger wave, allowing Hux to see it in full._

_He doubled over, vomiting bile onto the sand. He couldn’t stop after the first time, heaving again and again, only stopping when his stomach ached and refused to give up anything more. Fingers drifted over his soiled lips, eyes drawn unwillingly upwards._

_What floated before Hux was his own corpse. Laid out on its back, arms and legs splayed and head lolled to the side, giving the shaking Hux a full view of its slack, grey expression. Flesh bloated, tongue swollen and picked at by schools of fish, eyes both bulging out and sunken in. Red hair tangled with seaweed and drenched with sand, clothes tattered to reveal his distended abdomen, misshapen flesh there mottled with a web of green and black bruises as if he’d been beaten inside and out._

_Hux threw up again, falling to his knees in the shallows. Coughing on the dregs of acid in his throat, he forced himself to look away from the drowned, disfigured corpse._ Compartmentalize _, he tried urging to himself._ Disassociate _. It couldn’t be real._

 _There was no way. He was_ alive _, damn it all, alive._

_“Are you?” came a voice, snapping Hux’s attention back up. At first, he looked at the hollow, skull-like face of the dead Hux, like it had spoken. But that voice hadn’t sounded like his._

_“It doesn’t appear so.”_

_Suddenly, before his very eyes, the dead Hux’s bloated corpse began to twitch and roll with unnatural movement, bumps and bulges rising in his distended abdomen, stretching the thin and rotting skin until it split like a putrid fruit left out too long in the sun. Reddish black tentacles erupted from the corpse’s belly, like a vicious monster of the depths coming to consume an unfortunate vessel. The corpse’s body arched up out of the water as more and more tentacles emerged, shredding the flesh between his ribs and blossoming out of every available orifice—its mouth, its nose, even its glazed eyes squeezed and popped as more tentacles pushed out, forcing vitreous fluid out of the sockets to drip down his sallow cheeks like the innards of a cracked, bloody egg._

_More vomit surged in Hux’s throat, and he swayed on his feet, wishing he could pass out, but the vision before him never faltered as the creature hatched from his corpse, growing larger and larger, the remains of the dead Hux falling to the wayside, floating away in pieces in the turmoil of the waves._

_At first, the creature looked like nothing but formless flesh and writhing tentacles, but gradually it took shape amidst the waves, into something no less horrific, yet familiar. Something Hux had witnessed on innumerable monitors and print outs, become as conscious of as his heartbeat, or the back of his hand. He let out a wet sob, globs of vomit still stuck in the back of his throat._

_**“Armitage.”** He heard it speak, or rather heard something inside of his head, all around him, infecting the air. Though it didn’t seem to have a mouth, its voice was resonant and warped, like the toll of a cracked bell. Different from the one that had spoken inside of his head, deeper and far stronger. Hux swallowed, taking the longest seconds of his life to come up with a response. _

_“How...how do you know my name?” he asked with a rasp._

_**“We are becoming one, Armitage,”** the parasite rustled. **“I know everything you know. Everything you are. And soon, you will know everything I do. You will have all the power I have.”** _

_Hux shivered, the parasite’s words tickling icily on the inside of his ribs. “What power?” he scoffed. The only power you’ve given me is the power to projectile vomit my own insides.”_

_**“What power, you say?”** The parasite quivered with disdain, several mottled yellow eyes focusing upon him, briefly, before they were subsumed in its multifarious mass. **“How many mere generals can stand up against the Master of Ren? Don’t be foolish.”** _

_Hux balked. “That...that was you?” The inexplicable surge of power, even as he lost control over himself. That was…?_

_“Of course,” the parasite continued. “And there is much more that we could do together, Armitage. If you stopped resisting, gave yourself over, we could become a being of impossible strength. No one could stop you. No one could control you, render you helpless.”_

_Hux found himself edging closer to the water as the voice went on. He stared into the undulating depths of the parasite, the eyes and tentacles and bulbs of flesh that sought and failed to maintain their full form. He had a hard time believing that the thing that had tormented him for weeks could possibly be a source of power—and yet, had it not thrown back even the great Kylo Ren with its strength? And he had been resisting it, not allowing it to take full control of his body and mind. If he let it in all the way, allowed it and he to become one—there was no telling what Hux could accomplish._

_It could be greater than any glory even Starkiller could give him._

_Hux raised his hand, leather fingers curled. His greatcoat billowed out around him, changing with each gust of wind—new rank stripes decorating his sleeves, chains and epaulets wreathing his shoulders, command cap refining into a golden crown, and even the blaster at his belt lengthening and glowing until it took the form of a long, red blade sprung from an elegant black basket hilt, its pillar of plasma stable and unyielding._

_**“If you do not wish to be weak, give yourself over,”** the parasite crooned, **“you will have powers beyond even your wildest dreams. Beyond anyone who stands in your way.”** _

_Tendrils unfurled over the shallow waves lapping against the sand, winding up towards Hux, ready to embrace him. He lifted his arm, fingers stretching out, as if preparing a handshake._

**_“Come. You will no longer be the weak, dying husk of a man that you are. That you have always been.”_ **

_Hux froze, hand still raised. He stared at the parasite for a long moment, then at his fingertips, the tendrils floating above them, ready to interweave and meld together, become permanently one. But before they could touch him, Hux recoiled, rearing away from the waterline and bringing his hand firmly to his chest, almost in salute._

_“No,” he spat. He felt his familiar defiant sneer curling at his lips. “My body, my_ mind _, belong to me, and nothing,_ no one _else in the galaxy. No matter what you offer, what pretty lies you think you’re telling or how big of a fool you think I am, I’m not giving them up to you, you slimy pfaasking_ worm _.”_

 _Hux’s words hung in the still, grey air, resounding like one of his speeches. The parasite stayed quiet for a moment, simmering in the waves, as if considering him, or perhaps even cowed by his rebuke. Then it spoke_ — _in a low, sinister crawl deep within Hux’s bone marrow._

**_“Very well. Then I shall take them from you, Armitage.”_ **

_Hux screamed, feet pulled out from underneath him as the layers of his uniform were suddenly stripped, proven to be mere illusions, burned away by a shattering downpour of rain that felt like acid and sucked into the tides of the foaming sea, into the toothed, yawning maw of the parasite as its hissing overtook even the din of the crashing waves. He clawed and kicked at the sand, now naked and pink against the sand as he struggled away from the shoreline, away from the lashing tendrils of the parasite as it tried to grab him, to drag him into the water, down into its inescapable, voracious gullet. Hux felt an oppressive force in his mind, as the landscape of Arkanis darkened around him, clouds growing lower and lower to the earth, rain thunderous and drowning, everything trying to close around him, to entrap him and digest him, dissolve his fighting resolve into nothing but sludge for the parasite to feed upon—when suddenly, a blaze of bright, erratic red cut across the gloom, slicing it away like lightning rends the sky into a thousand tattered pieces, for a split second halting even the torrent of rain._

Hux woke with a start, scream dying on his dry lips, just as Ren—looming, dark, determined—finished clasping a pair of steel cuffs around his bare, trembling ankles. 

**Author's Note:**

> I would love to hear any of your thoughts on the progression of this story. 
> 
> Hit me up on [Tumblr](http://thethespacecoyote.tumblr.com) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heir_of_breath7/).


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